


Walking on to Gold

by shadesofbrixton



Series: Theme and Variations: The AU Collection [5]
Category: A Knight's Tale (2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Renaissance, Geoff is a Romantic with no grounding in reality, M/M, This is totally an accidental Ever After crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-04
Updated: 2005-08-04
Packaged: 2019-10-09 13:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17407682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesofbrixton/pseuds/shadesofbrixton
Summary: Geoff is a scribe and general gopher for Leonardo da Vinci, who I totally pilfered from Ever After, let's be honest. Wat's family owns a bakery, and generally manipulates him toward the artist. All kinds of delicious misunderstandings ensue. Anachronisms galore.





	Walking on to Gold

_Into the night I went looking for angels  
Only to find I was walking alone  
Searching the line for some sign of salvation, Lord,  
But I found none._

\- Sister Rosetta, Alabama 3

  
  
  
  
"Oh, stars," says the blacksmith, and wipes her hands. Geoff resolutely ignores her, and taps carefully at the small mosaic tiles, sorting them by shade. It's the kind of activity easy enough to maintain during lunch, which is why he always takes it up midday. It also helps that the boys from the quarry come with their pockets full of porcelain and clay for him on their own lunch breaks, and he happily unloads their pockets and lines them with tin and scrap iron.  
  
"What's wrong?" Christiana, round with child and modeling for the Signore, eases herself down into a chair near Geoff. She has been given leave for food, and her dress swims huge and orange and ornate all around her.   
  
Kate gathers the folds of Christian's dress away from the forge, because the other woman cannot bend. "It's that baker, come back with the bread." The blacksmith frowns, and leans further out the clay, glassless windows to peer down the dusty street. "Now we'll never get any work done," she says, and affects a sigh.  
  
Christiana leans back, her hand over her stomach, and addresses Geoff more than Kate. "No? Why not?"  
  
The blacksmith jerks her head toward Geoff. "He'll spend the whole time gawping, and then the baker'll be mean, and Geoff'll sulk all afternoon."  
  
"Excuse me," says Geoff, plucking out a few green tiles and adding them to a pile. "I'm right here, you know."  
  
"Do you fancy the baker, Geoffrey?" Christiana asks, not innocent, but polite.  
  
Geoff checks the door, and, seeing it as yet unoccupied, shrugs. "He's beautiful," is his answer. He has been trained to see beauty in everything, and he definitely sees it in the baker.  
  
"But you never  _do_  anything about it," Kate says. "And we have to sit here and be unproductive because of you. You're wasting the Signore's time."  
  
"Fine," Geoff shoots back, skittering a few red tiles to the ground, "then I'll  _do_  something about it." He doesn't want to do anything about it. Nothing needs to be done, really. He's perfectly happy just watching the baker, and admiring his face, and trying to find just the right tiles to match his eyes.   
  
"Fine," Kate says, her arms over her chest, and has a twisted smile on her face.  
  
"Bread," says the baker, and Christiana smiles pityingly at him.   
  
Geoff immediately bounds up, his loose shirt flapping behind him like a demented chicken, and grins down at the baker. "Thank you," he says, and presses coins into his hand. He turns, tosses the bread to Christiana, who catches it against her chest and laughs.   
  
"Welcome," says the other man, and turns to leave.   
  
Geoff follows him out into the street. "Er," he says, not wanting to make a scene. The baker turns, stares at him. Geoff says nothing.  
  
"You want to add to the order?" the baker says.  
  
"No, no. No, the bread is – what's your name?" Geoff stumbles.  
  
"Wat," says the baker. Flatly. Geoff nearly deflates – the man clearly sees no business opportunity here, and therefore nothing of merit in Geoff.   
  
"I’m Geoffrey – Geoff," Geoff says. "I do the scribe work for Signore da Vinci."  
  
"Oh," Wat says. Clearly meaning  _so? and? Why should I care?_  
  
Geoff takes a step backward, sees Kate watching him from inside, and turns back to Wat, determined. "Are you free for supper?"  
  
Wat looks at him as though he's been offered a rotten calf for his bread. "No."   
  
The baker walks away before Geoff can do more than close his gaping mouth.  
  


* * *

  
  
It's the Spanish heat that makes the city so unbearable, and as the sun floats up on its waves of fire, and Wat has ad the ovens going for two hours already, he knows it's going to be hot. He's already pouring sweat – what Alice jokes makes the salt bread so good – and covered with soot from having climbed inside the clay ovens to clean them before he lit them again. The bread is baked, and wrapped in clean white cloths to keep it warm and fresh, when Wat insists that he'll do no deliveries that day.  
  
Canny as ever, Alice calls him out in front of the others. "You're avoiding that boy at da Vinci's," she accuses.   
  
Wat points a wooden spoon at her and purses his lips, and hums threateningly. Then he goes back to chopping the rosemary into a fine powder.  
  
"He does stare awfully," Tamsin says, rather thoughtful.   
  
"You hush," Wat tells her, but means both of them, and isn't sure why it makes him so angry. Maybe it's that the man could be staring at his niece – da Vinci's workers have a penchant for little boys, he's heard, and though Alice says it's ridiculous, and she would know, Wat isn't about to take the risk.   
  
"Send Jonathon," Wat decides, and so they do.  
  
Wat spends the rest of the day grinding flour, and falls asleep exhausted at dusk. He dreams, but he cannot remember them when he wakes.  
  


* * *

  
  
For the next week, a different member of Wat's family brings the bread every day – so much so that Geoff cannot believe that they possibly all work at the bakery, or that they all are related to the baker, they vary so vastly in looks and style. But the base of Wat is in all of them, and Geoff can tell. The girls seem particularly mischievous, and stay longer than they ought to, and help Christiana move around and, as though they seem to think they will somehow benefit from it, they sometimes help Geoff sort his tiles.  
  
"That's entirely the wrong shade of blue," Geoff scolds Crispian and Tamsin echoes him in her small voice at her brother. They have come with a woman named Cecily, who is having a conversation with Kate about Garnets, and keeping an eye on her children at the same time. Geoff finds it admirable and entirely ineffective. "It goes in this box – " he indicates, and Crispian removes the offending tile. "Thank you," he says, brisk and blithe, and replaces the box on the ground at his feet.   
  
He is about to add something to the conversation – something witty and worthwhile, he is sure, when a shadow darkens the room and the children fall silent.  
  
"Ah," says a voice, and the sound of dry palms rubbing against one another. "Excellent."  
  
Geoff turns in his seat, and smiles. "Signore," he says warmly. "You've finished your experiment?"   
  
Leonardo looks like he wants to tweak Geoff's nose. "Not in the slightest, my boy. It's this bread – " he demonstrates with a chunk that is, by all appearances, more than a few days old. "It's remarkable."   
  
"Thank you, Signore," Cecily says, with a tiny curtsy.   
  
Leonardo waves off the formality and comes forward, his work robes trailing this way and that. "My goodness!" he exclaims when he sees the children, and comes up short. Then he drops to his knees. "How extraordinary!" As though he has never seen tiny people before. Then he peers up at Geoff. "Chaucer, my boy, I need a letter penned."  
  
"Of course." Geoff pushes himself to his feet and maneuvers around the boxes of tiles. He points threateningly at the children. "Don't do the blues," he says, and when Tamsin beams at him, he gives her a wink.   
  
The letter is uneventful, a denial to a commission that Da Vinci has no desire to write. When the man returns to his work, Geoff remains in the workshop a while longer, watching him tinker and test and, eventually, begin a charcoal sketch. Inspired, Geoff begins a letter of his own.   
  
When he finishes it, he seals it with wax and a gold ring that the Signore has left on the work bench, and carries it out into the main hall.  
  
"I'd like you to deliver this to your brother-in-law," he tells Cecily.   
  
She looks from the letter, to him, to the letter, and grins. It's a discomforting look. "I'm sorry," she says. "He can't read."  
  
"Ah," Geoff says, and feels even worse. "Well."  
  
"You'll simply have to come along and read it to him yourself," Cecily says airily, and captures his sleeve. Geoff barely has time to grab his shoes before she drags him out the door.  
  


* * *

  
  
Wat is distracted by one simple fact: he is covered in flour.  
  
It's an innocent enough sort of mistake, really. Except that he's trying to chase down Parnel to give the child a proper thrashing and the bloody girl keeps giving him the slip. She scuttles up the ladder just before Wat can grab for her ankle, and he can hear her tittering on the flat roof. "This was an entire day's work, you know!" he bellows up at her, little white drifts coming out of his hair. Just you wait until Marina hears about this!"  
  
"Er," comes a voice from behind him, and Wat whips around, his fist for shaking still raised in the air, and another puff of flour floats off of him.   
  
"Is this a bad time?" Cecily asks, and from the look on her face Wat knows that she can tell it is. She's got her arm through Geoff's, and he's got one child clinging to each leg like a rather bulky pair of trouser legs. He's trying half-heartedly to shake off Tamsin, who giggles and holds on harder.  
  
"Oh," Wat says, and lowers his hands to his head to fluff the flour out. It scatters to the floor, some of it, but most of it stays and pales his hair and skin. "You. What do you want?" Da Vinci's scribe who had wanted him to work through his dinner break, if he recalled. It was hard to forget a face like that, anyway. Hair bleached out from the sun and freckles scattered over his neck like the flour in Wat's hair. He scowled for good measure, and propped his hands in his apron pockets.  
  
"Come along, children," Cecily says, and claps her hands, and it all comes off far too innocent to be innocent at all as she scurries them into the back room.   
  
Without the ballast of Tamsin and Crispian, Geoff looks as though he might like to wander away. Instead, he puts his hands in his pockets and smiles sheepishly at Wat. "I wrote you a letter. But…I thought I'd come and…read it to you." He looks hopefully at Wat.  
  
Wat scrutinizes him. The man doesn't look insane but, then, he's also been working for da Vinci. Who knows what could've gotten into the man's head. "You do know that those are, traditionally, mailed."  
  
"Ah." Geoff scrubs at the back of his head with one long-fingered hand. "Your sister said you couldn't read."  
  
Wat squints. "Did she."  
  
Geoff's face crumbles. "Oh, Lord, you  _can_  read?" Wat doesn't quite understand. Shouldn't this be a good thing? Geoff can give him the letter and be on his merry way, and neither of them will have to deal with this nonsense any longer, and Wat can go and wash his face.   
  
He smudges halfheartedly at a bit of flour on his cheek and frowns when his thumb comes away white. "Well," he says expectantly. "Hand it over then."  
  
"Er," Geoff shuffles a step backward. "No."  
  
"Why not? It's my letter?" Wat goes up to him and peers up into his face. "Give it over."  
  
"Really rather best if I didn't," Geoff says with a nervous sort of laugh. Wat is unconvinced. "Look," he adds. "I'll tell you – it just asked you again. For supper."  
  
Wat blinks. "I told you no. I don't work past – "  
  
"No," Geoff cuts him off, and looks startled. "No, I mean the two of us, going to eat something, together."  
  
"Oh," Wat says lamely, and backs up a step, until they are a respectable distance apart. He wipes a hand over his flour coated forehead. Then, suspicious: "Why? You don't even know me?"  
  
Geoff grins, looking suddenly relieved even though Wat is quite aware he hasn't agreed to anything. He wonders if perhaps the man really  _is_  mental, and that's why he's working for da Vinci. A charity case, as it were.   
  
"Yes, I do," Geoff says, and the way he says it makes Wat's hair stand on end. He backs up another half-step. "And what I don't know, I have all night to learn."  
  
"I don't think…" Wat starts, and then blurts, "later."  
  
Geoff almost looks startled that Wat's agreed, and Wat wishes he could retract it, and knows it's written all over his face.   
  
"Thursday," Cecily says, sweeping out of the back room, dignified, as though she hasn't been eavesdropping like mad anyway. "And certainly not with his hair like this." She takes a handful of Wat's hair and shakes his head back and forth. He stamps her foot for it, and she doesn't let go, just moves her feet.   
  
"Thursday," the other man gushes, and walks out the door. Then he stops, looks at Wat, gives a roguish grin and a wink, and is out of sight before Wat can respond.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Oh, honestly. One pederast in your ranks and the entire division is marred forever," Geoff is saying. It's a week later but oh, what a week. A week that has killed him every day, from dawn until dusk until dawn again. He has written furiously by hand – his own writing and invitations for da Vinci – and worked faster on the mural than ever before. The Signore has teams of people now, and Geoff is in charge of the eastern curve, which he's particularly proud of. There's still work to be done, but it's made the week fly, trying to take his mind off of the dinner.   
  
"So you don't like little boys, then?" Wat isn't edging around this very carefully, Geoff thinks, and wonders how long it's been bothering him. Possibly the entire time. He finds the idea that he's been thought of as a child molester quite annoying. They've found a nice restaurant near the center of town, and the dishes have been cleared, and the sun is near to setting. Geoff wishes the man would lower his voice but, then, if this is the sort of thing that's being spread, maybe it's best that everyone possible hear it.  
  
"No," Geoff replies testily, "I don't. Unless you count you. But really, you're just short."   
  
"You – " Wat says. "What?"  
  
Geoff shakes the annoyance immediately in the face of Wat's bewilderment. "I like you. Quite a lot, actually. Is that going to be a problem?"  
  
"I – " Wat says, and then his jaw keeps moving, but he can't seem to get any other words out.  
  
Geoff leans sideways, his elbow on the arm of his chair, and mock-whispers behind his hand into Wat's ear. "Unless," he says, "you really are a little boy." He glances down at Wat's groin, at the satisfyingly filled trouser placket there, and back up to his face. In a conspiring voice, he concludes: "But I think I'm safe there."  
  
The words, not the ogling, are what shove Wat away from him out of his chair. He looks back over his shoulder, just once, as though checking to see if Geoff is going to explain the joke. Geoff keeps his face grave, and his eyes intent on Wat's face.  
  
Wat flees. Geoff follows him.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Come on," Geoff says, quiet but for the night, and pulls Wat along off the road. They go blindly, until Wat can feel the change from road to dirt, and dirt to grass. It is cool on his feet, and tickles, and the path slopes on and downward at a slight decline.  
  
The sound of water comes before the moon's reflection off of it is visible, and they come upon a lush bank – the sort Wat imagines when Jonathan speaks of Egypt. Rushes and grass crowd right up to the water's edge, and the trees are not so dense here.   
  
Geoff pulls them up to a hammock, one that is obviously well used, and Wat wonders if Geoff placed it there himself and, if he did, why no one takes it. Then he toes off his shoes and sits. The resultant sigh of satisfaction is more than enough to make Wat nervous.  
  
The woven ropes creak and hum under Geoff's weight, and he sighs happily and tucks his hands under his head, his feet still on the ground - he lays across it, not along its length, and he pushes himself gently to and fro. It's more than obvious that there's room for two, but instead, Wat hovers and feels awkward.  
  
"Have a seat," Geoff tells him, his eyes locked on the heavens. "You could use a bit of a swing."  
  
Wat watches him, wary of his good humor. "Don't sailors use those," he wants to know, "on boats, like?"  
  
Geoff makes a noise that lets Wat know that while he is right, he is more so wrong. "Sit," he says again, "and you can see the stars."  
  
Wat sits carefully on the edge of the hammock, which sets it to swinging.   
  
"It's fine," Geoff tells him when he swears, and Geoff steadies it with his long legs again.   
  
The hammock's of the shape that, no matter how Wat intends to keep his distance, he cannot. His added bulk shifts them together, until he can feel Geoff pressed against him torso to knee.  
  
"Mm," Geoff says, and brings an arm down around him, until the back of Wat's head is pillowed slightly on Geoff's chest and they're both staring at the heavens.   
  
The stars  _are_  impressive, Wat has to admit, and the cool of the water and the grass helps to cut the dusty, heavy heat that had followed them on the road.  
  
The coolness and the comfort of it balls in Wat's chest, his hands piled easily on his stomach, and he nudges his head back and forth on Geoff until his neck is at a comfortable angle. Geoff makes an amused little snorting sound, and Wat scowls, but Geoff doesn't tease, so he isn't forced to move.  
  
When Wat pulls his legs up crossways, Geoff starts to rock them, carefully, the ropes tightening and slackening under their weight against the trunks of the trees.   
  
"This isn't what I'd sleep on if I was a sailor," Wat decides.  
  
"Mn?" Geoff mumbles, from behind Wat's hair.  
  
"You couldn't see the stars like this," Wat tells him. "And I think you can see them pretty good at sea, except for the clouds, maybe." But even so – if there were clouds while he was sailing, he'd probably be too busy trying to help on the ship to watch them.  
  
"You could be a navigator," Geoff tells him. "You ought to be up there."  
  
Wat grunts in confusion. "I ought to be a star?"  
  
Geoff sounds amused. "You already are one."  
  
Wat sits up to glare at him, propped up on one elbow and glaring over his shoulder, he elbow dug into the rope. Except then he gets distracted because there's Geoff, looking not up, but at him, and looking pleased as punch and slightly silver-blue in the moonlight.   
  
Something catches in Wat's chest when their eyes meet, liquid blue on frozen teal, and Geoff reaches a hand for him, pulls him down, and kisses him on his cheek.   
  
Wat's stomach throbs as he lays across Geoff's chest, face in his neck, mouth nearly on his skin. The embrace is comfortable, one arm around Geoff's torso and the other around Wat's shoulders, and all of Wat's face is scorching from the kiss.  
  
He pushes himself away, rocks up, and Geoff sits up on his elbows. Wat's stomach throbs again, and he swallows it. This is odd. This isn't right. What Geoff's telling him, and trying to say but not really saying at all, none of it makes sense to Wat, and he  _wants_  it to make sense, so it's just making him more and more angry. If Geoff isn't going to explain things, Wat certainly isn't going to be buggered to work them out himself.  
  
"I have to get up in a few hours to bake," he tells Geoff, and Geoff looks as though he knows this for what is the most feeble excuse available.   
  
"When you can," Geoff says, like it's Wat's idea and not his own, "you ought to come to the workshop. I can show you what we've been working on."   
  
Wat shakes his head no, and then changes his mind and nods. "Maybe," he says, and he has no idea why his brain lets it come out of his mouth, but it does: "You should come to church with me sometime." It comes out accusatorily, as though Geoff should be ashamed for not already having done it. And as soon as it's out, Wat doesn't know why he's said it. It sounds like the worst idea he's ever voiced. Geoff doesn't belong in a church just like he doesn't belong in da Vinci's workshop.  
  
Geoff looks more at ease than Wat thinks he probably should, considering. "I worship elsewhere. Beauty brings people closer to god."  
  
Wat frowns. "And?"  
  
"And I believe God finds this an acceptable trade," Geoff says blithely, and rocks the hammock a bit. "I create beautiful things in his honor. I create love."  
  
Wat blinks. "You can't create love," he demands.  
  
Geoff watches him for a moment. "No," he says, thoughtfully. "But  _you_  can."  
  
It takes Wat most of the way home before he realizes what Geoff means.   
  


* * *

  
  
Geoff doesn't think he'll be able to sleep that night, but when he finally leaves the hammock and finds his way back to the workshop, he's surprised to find the place in a blaze of light and activity. Kate is hammering way at the forge, something being bent over a white-hot fire, and da Vinci is bustling around in the front room like a man possessed.  
  
"Geoffrey," he burst, when the man comes in. "I'm so glad you've returned. You're up to some activity, of course?"   
  
Geoff is. It turns out the Signore has gotten it into his head that he would like to be able to fly.  
  
"And descend like an angel from on high during the unveiling, no doubt," Kate says to both of them, hands on her back, turning the statement into an accusation the way only she can.   
  
"Precisely, my dear girl!" The Signore beams and sets down to work, candles burning down around them.  
  
As he sketches, da Vinci dictates a list to Geoff of people who are to be invited to the party.   
  
"You know," Geoff says thoughtfully, as he scribbles the first of the invitations. "This would be a lot easier if there were a way to reproduce these without my copying each one."  
  
The other man freezes, and jams his quill through his beard, as he is wont to do when he is thinking quite hard.   
  
Then he dashes away into the workshop, and slams the door behind him, sending the candles guttering.  
  
Geoff looks up at Kate, who is scowling down at him. "What?" he asks. "What did I say?  
  


* * *

  
  
It's the end of the day, and Wat has scattered the crusty loaves on the opposite side of the street for the birds, and is holding a few chunks of bread in his apron – made a sack by his holding up the corners – when Geoff comes ambling up the path.  
  
The man is grinning as soon as he sees Wat, but however happy he is, he takes his sweet time getting to Wat. Not that Wat's impatient – it's just that it's hard to know when to greet someone, when he's staring and grinning and whistling aimlessly to himself, but still too far away.  
  
Geoff drops a scroll at every storefront he passes, some on window ledges and others tucked into letter slots. He carries them in a leather satchel slung over one shoulder and – Wat sees this as he is handed one – the parchment is expensive and creamy, and tied with fine red ribbon.  
  
"The Signore requests your presence for an unveiling," Geoff announces.  
  
Wat looks at the handwritten invitation and frowns, calculating numbers and servings. "You'll need to place a work-order with Alice." She keeps all the books, though she insists there would be better choices.  
  
Geoff releases him of his loaves and begins crumbling them for the birds. "I'm afraid you misunderstand," he tells Wat. " _I_  request your presence for an unveiling. You, and your family."  
  
Wat blinks, and looks up. There's no other baker in the city who can supply enough bread to feed his family, let alone a banquet.  
  
"The castle cooks," Geoff tells Wat, "are to see to the banquet."  
  
"The unveiling is at the  _castle_?"  
  
Geoff nods and sucks a flake of crust off of his thumb. "It's a mural at the rotunda, yes."   
  
Wat doesn't say anything for a moment, just chews on the inside of his cheek and sizes Geoff up. "Maybe," he says, and pulls his apron off over his head, remnant crumbs pattering to the ground at his feet.   
  
He dumps the apron and the scroll by the door on a stool, and means to go on back through the kitchens, but Geoff takes him by the wrist and pulls him out into the street.  
  
"I have more to deliver," he informs Wat. "Come with me."  
  
Wat makes noise over it, but eventually allows himself to be wooed by the promise of gelato and what Geoff will only refer to as a surprise worth seeing.  
  
Wat doubts very much that there is anything worth seeing, but doesn't bother to tug his hand away. There is gelato, after all.  
  
Geoff's deliveries take them all over town, and down the road to the castle last. They slip in through the kitchen entrance well after the sun has disappeared, and they dine on game stew and fresh tomatoes and mozzarella and basil. When Wat asks how he's managed this, Geoff gives him his mysterious smile and says something ridiculous about knowing the prince.  
  
After supper, they retire to the servant's quarters in hopes of a hand of cards, and are dragged out into a revel on the lawns. The gypsies are in town for the summer markets, and as a testament to the truce of arms and trade, the prince has allowed them to moor nearest his land. There are bonfires and sweets and wild children and music and dancing. It all reminds Wat of his family, and that he is long overdue at home.  
  
But then Geoff is plying him with food and pulling him into a dance and the world spins in a black night turned grey by smoke and stars.  
  
By the time they collapse on the sweet smelling grass, Wat feels light headed from exhaustion, but happy.  
  
"I've got to get home," he says, and the words remind him of the last time he said them, and how oddly the evening ended, and it makes his lungs twist up. It's easier to think when he's alone, when Geoff isn't staring at him like he  _knows_  something, when Wat's trying so hard to be sure that he knows nothing at all.  
  
"Not yet," Geoff says – not a plea, but a command. He shoves himself to his feet; no hint of the ache in Wat's bones that comes from a lack of sleep is reflected in the sandy-haired man.  
  
He pulls Wat up, and they walk along the bank. "You've not had your surprise yet."  
  
This, in itself, is a bit of a shock. The dinner – the castle itself – the party, the dancing. All of it in one night is a little much. Still, his legs carry him toward the edge of the King's lands and beyond.  
  
He isn't sure where Geoff's taking him until they're nearly there, and then they're upon the quarry. And although he knows where they are, he still can't fathom why.  
  
They sit on the edge, feet dangling into the expansive pit, and Geoff's energy seems to flee him. He leans back on his hands, and closes his eyes, and smiles.  
  
Wat realizes he's staring, and knows how uncomfortable it makes him when Geoff does it, but he doesn't seem to care – or maybe he doesn't realize he's being watched. "What now?" Wat asks, and doesn't sound nearly half as tired as he feels.  
  
Geoff's eyes open. "We wait," he tells Wat.  
  
The sky is going grey, and then a murky blue, and then some other color that Wat doesn't have a name for. He doesn't know why he feels so peaceful, but figures it's likely exhaustion and doesn't fight it.   
  
Geoff opens his eyes and blinks, and says, "That's the color of your eyes." He looks so sure of the fact that Wat actually turns to the horizon to look.  
  
"What?" he demands. "What are you talking about?"  
  
Geoff looks at him, and Wat meets his gaze, and then drops it. The dawn creeps over them slowly and Wat, nonplussed by Geoff's surprise, wants nothing more than to sleep. The walk home will be a difficult one, he realizes, because they have wandered in such a haphazard way to get to this place. He has no idea how far he really is from the High Street and his tiny shop.  
  
There is silence and then, his tongue heavy in his mouth and his eyes on the quarry, Wat says, "I don't know how you can say things like that."  
  
"With my mouth, usually," Geoff says breezily.   
  
Wat hits him in the side. "No. With – and." He frowns, and clenches his teeth. Useless, annoying words. "The other night – "  
  
"Ah," Geoff says, and saves him from himself. Here, Wat thinks, will come the explanation to all of it. "Well," Geoff says, considering. "I do love you. So." He shrugs.  
  
Wat gapes. "Bu – " he says. And, "Whu – No, you don't. How could you?" It's ridiculous, they don’t' even know one another, and there's no possible way that Geoff could love him. And even on the odd chance that he  _does_ , that just isn't the sort of thing that people run around so casually with.  
  
"I love lots of things," Geoff says easily. "I don't see why I can't. I certainly don't expect you to do anything about it, if that's your worry."  
  
"You can't," Wat says, helpless in the face of everything he wants to yell. "People don't  _work_ like that." He isn't worth of this bizarre and unreasonable love, he wants a love that makes sense, and that certainly isn't going to come from this man – and he wants very much for Geoff to shut up and leave him be or at least help him find the road and then leave him alone.  
  
"I do," Geoff says simply, and Wat doesn't doubt it, because he  _is_  completely ridiculous. But that doesn't excuse the situation.  
  
"Ah," Geoff says again. And, "it's starting." He points to the east. "Look."  
  
Wat looks. At first, there is nothing, just the daylight, reminding himself just how late it is and how his family will be worried.  
  
And then the sun itself glimpses over the quarry's lip, and the valley erupts in a riot of glittering rock in one blinding, beautiful second.  
  
The shine dulls as the sun rises properly, but that dazzling moment blinds itself into Wat's memory.  
  
"It's quartz," Geoff says simply, and pulls him up again and smiles tiredly. They wind their way back toward the main road and back to the castle, and Wat glances over his shoulder at the quarry one last time before he focuses on the road. He's grateful for the ride they hitch from one of the castle's guards on his way to market. They get off at High Street, and Wat can see smoke curling from the bakery.  
  
"Thank you," he says, and despite the oddness of the night, he means it.  
  
Geoff smiles, kisses him once on each cheek, and lets him go. The writer turns and wends his way home, but Wat spends a good minute staring out at the path of his departure and remembering the sunrise before he can turn away.  
  


* * *

  
  
Geoff doesn't think he'll sleep, but he does, and when he wakes, the workshop is curiously empty. There is none of the bustle from downstairs of nights past, and he realizes with a jolt that the mural must be that close to completion. Kate's metalworking is being laid today, and the entire party has gone down to the castle and hasn't woken him.   
  
Except he can still hear voices. He dresses and creeps downstairs to find Christiana sitting at the table they spread food on, and Wat slicing her what looks to be a fine bit of apple pie. The scent is intoxicating, and he's stuck his fingers in the filling and is licking his fingers before he even realizes that Christiana is watching him, amused.   
  
"You make  _pie_?" he mumbles to Wat, who is watching him oddly.  
  
"Otherwise I'd be a breadsmith, wouldn't I," he said, not very reasonably at all, and Christiana attacked her presented plate with vigor.   
  
"Was your family worried?" Geoff asks. "After this morning?"  
  
Wat darts his eyes down to Christiana, as though to judge her reaction to the revelation that it was he who kept Geoff out all night, but she is very politely not listening. "They found the invitation, and…no. They assumed I…" He frowns. "They didn't worry."  
  
Sensing that perhaps all is not well, and knowing that he is quite right, Geoff draws Wat outside, out the back through the workshop, and sets him down on the steps there. "There now," he says, and crosses his hands on his hips. "What's all this about, then?"   
  
Wat looks up at him, and tilts his head against the door. "I can't do this."  
  
Something in Geoff's stomach plummets. "Don't be ridiculous, of course you can." But for the first time in his year and odd months working with da Vinci, he wonders if perhaps pursuing a man, a man he has never seen show interest in another man, a man quite happy to be alone who he, for all intents and purposes does not know at all, a man who could easily report him as a sodomite despite having no proof of the claim, is perhaps not the best idea in the world.  
  
"No," Wat says wearily. "I really can't."  
  
"Why not," Geoff wants to know, and sits down in front of him. "Tell me why not."  
  
Wat looks at a loss for this. "I just can't. I don't understand you, any of this. You aren't being fair, getting me all exhausted and then telling me things all at once – "  
  
"Listen," Geoff says, and touches his foot. Even that seems like a violation, now that Wat has voiced displeasure. "Listen. This isn't – You don't have to have anything to do with this. But it isn't going to stop how I feel."  
  
Wat looks at him warily, and Geoff knows he sees the sense in it and is trying to fight his way around it.  
  
"I've loved you for a long time," Geoff says quietly. "And I'm going to keep loving you. I'm afraid you don't have much choice in the matter, frankly."  
  
"That's not fair," Wat says petulantly.  
  
Geoff sighs, and rearranges himself on his knees in front of Wat. The symbolism of it doesn't escape him, but he ignores it. "Look," he says, and puts a hand on Wat's knee. Wat doesn't move. "Please." It's just one word, and as he says it, he realizes in a rather thundering way that there's nothing – absolutely nothing – that he can do if Wat says no.  
  
Wat doesn't say no.  
  
Wat doesn't say anything.  
  
Tinged with desperation for the first time, but somehow encouraged by the fact that he hasn't sent Wat fleeing, he pulls one of Wat's hands into his own. "Please," he says again, his mind casting about for something, anything, that will convince him that this will be alright. That they can grow into this, that it won't be awkward for Wat, that some things are just worth trying. "Let me kiss you."  
  
"What?" startles Wat, and nearly yanks his hand away. Geoff holds fast to it.  
  
"Just once," Geoff says. And again, "Please. Then you'll know. And if you don't like it, none of this ever again. I promise." He tries to convince himself that this is true.   
  
Wat watches him warily for a moment, and slowly extricates his hand. "Just once," he agrees after a painfully long silence, and something hot and wet pops in Geoff's chest.   
  
Except that faced with the actual prospect of  _one defining kiss_ , Geoff has no idea what to do. You can't just convince with a kiss. There's no actual way. The frantic nervousness buzzing in him ratchets itself up a notch, and he leans up on his knees so that he and Wat are eyelevel.   
  
He touches Wat's cheek, who flinches but doesn't move away, and feathers his fingers through the soft hair at the man's temple. And then draws him in close, so close, and their heads are angled perfectly and his mouth hovers, and he can feel, actually  _feel_ , Wat's breath on his mouth. His pause make's Wat's eyes flutter open from where they've gone half-mast, and he feels the hitch in breathing, and doesn't move until he's got Wat's eyes on his. And then he dips forward, just so, and brushes their open mouths together in the lightest kiss he's ever given.  
  
He tries to pull away, but doesn't get far before Wat's hands are fisted in his hair. "You didn't do it right," Wat insists, and crushes their mouths together.  
  
Geoff rather disagrees.  
  
Kissing Wat isn't anything like Geoff had thought it would be like, when he's allowed himself to think about it at all. Kissing Wat goes in ranges, ranges of hot and fierce and then soothing, easing back, Wat's arms behind him to support himself and Geoff easing his mouth open, coaxing with lips. Wat makes noise, delicious, excruciatingly addictive noise, and pushes back with his neck and mouth like an attack when he wants more, and Geoff willingly yields.   
  
It's intoxicating, and it's wrapped itself all through his brain, hands stroking down Wat's face and kisses over and over and over again, separation and return, until they're so far past once that Geoff can't even count any more.   
  
When Geoff finally manages to wrench himself away, it takes another moment to open his eyes, and what he sees nearly makes him moan and dive in for more. Instead, he bites his lip for just a moment, and forces himself not to move.  
  
He's looming over Wat as it is, hands on either side of his head, and Wat is propped back against the jerky curve of the steps. He doesn't look like he minds, though. Really, what he looks like is thoroughly kissed. Very, very thoroughly. Something like pride tingles in Geoff's gut.  
  
"Thank you," Geoff says, his voice dry and raspy.   
  
Wat, who has worked his hands in the hair at the back of Geoff's neck, lets go. Geoff takes this as a sign to back away, and he does, and watches warily. Wat looks like he doesn’t know what to say, or perhaps as though he does not trust his own words.  
  
"Come to the unveiling."  
  
Wat still can't say anything, but after a moment, nods. It takes everything in Geoff to step away, to pull him up, and to let the man walk away through their front door.   
  


* * *

  
  
It's past sundown on the night of the unveiling, and Wat is sitting on the roof of the bakery when Beatrice finds him. She has Cecily in tow, and they are both frowning down on him like mother hens. Beatrice, forebodingly, is holding what looks to be a rather nice shirt.  
  
"What's that, then?" he asks warily.  
  
"Your outfit for the unveiling," Cecily says in the voice she uses on Crispian when it's time for a bath.   
  
Wat fidgets. "I'm not going," he says, in what he knows does not sound like a very convinced tone. Since the other afternoon – the kiss, the talk, the business that had no business happening at all – Wat hasn't really been himself. He knows this. He hasn't slept much, and he crawled up here to look at, of all things, the stars as they came out. He doesn't understand any of this, how Geoff can love him, or say he does, and kiss him like that, like no one is ever supposed to kiss anyone else, not really, and it just doesn't all add together in his head. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do about it, so he's done nothing, and it's easier that way.  
  
His family will have none of it.  
  
Cecily doesn't even bother saying anything, just yanks his shirt over his head with the kind of ruthless efficiency he's seen her use on all the children when getting them ready for bed. Beatrice starts in on his pants, which makes him shout and swat at her.   
  
"Well, if you're not going to do it yourself!" she shouts back, exasperated hands on hips, but leaves him be. They dress him in record time, and he's still fighting it when Jonathan shows up in the front of the store with a horse. "Coming down?" he calls up to Wat, who makes a rather rude gesture back.   
  
But down he does come, and onto the horse he does go, and Cecily tosses his cloak to him and tells him that if he doesn't go straight to the castle, she'll tan his hide personally when he comes back.  
  
Really, Wat doesn't have any choice but to go to the unveiling.  
  
When he shows up, the party's already in full swing, and Wat tries to stick to the walls as best he can. It's terrifying, all the rich people around him, and he spots Kate looking defiantly proud in a corner, staring at the drapes hanging on the walls as if she can see through them, and Christiana is in a chair next to the village tailor, both of them glowing with near-childbirth.  
  
The Signore has Geoff by the arm and is muttering into his ear, but Wat can tell even from a distance that he isn't listening – to da Vinci or to the curly black haired man at his elbow who Wat realizes, belatedly, is the prince. And that Geoff must know him after all, if they can look one another in the eye like that, and it unsettles something in Wat's brain – if that, of all the tiny details is true, the possibilities of truth in what else Geoff has said are boundless.  
  
But it's da Vinci who spots Wat first, and gives Geoff's arm a squeeze, and then his bright blue eyes are on Wat, and the distracted look on his face is centered on him altogether. He doesn't bid his master or the prince a single word of departure – instead he simply strides over to Wat, cutting a swath through the room thick with people, and Wat is pinned to the spot and helpless but to wait.  
  
"I didn't think you'd come – " Geoff is saying to him, but Wat can't really see much more than the way Geoff's taken up his hands in both of his, and how Wat is squeezing back. "Come on," he says, and tugs him, not toward da Vinci, as Wat's feared, but toward Kate. "It's nearly time."  
  
The general volume level in the room does seem to be dropping, and Wat keeps his eyes on the artist and the prince in the middle of the room as they press against one of the walls. "Just here," Geoff says, and puts hands on his shoulders to keep him in place. "I'm glad you came," he says from just behind Wat, and into his ear, and just like that Wat is glad that he came, too.  
  
The artist is making noise about the work of the community, and how it's taken all of them together to create the mural, and the prince looks far more pleased than he ought to be. But then the curtains drop, and no one's really listening at all.  
  
The room is circular and blue. Entirely blue. It's massive and just….blue. Wat turns his head and sees the shades shift – from deep black to the lightest grey, and the most impressive cerulean he's ever seen. The sun is at the east point of the arc, and the moon at the west, and the wall he is facing is scattered with stars. At his back, he sees as he cranes his head up, is an impressive steel inlay of a bird, or an angel – something with wings, but he can't tell from this angle.   
  
Geoff squeezes his shoulder and points to a patch of wall just opposite. "Your eyes," he murmurs into Wat's ear.   
  
Wat looks at the patch that is just before sunrise, and presses back into Geoff, and reaches up to squeeze his hand. Everyone else is staring at the walls, pointing to the careful intricate work, the massive jewel inlay and the impressive smithing work that Kate has done. The room shines with sunrise and sunset, and no one is watching them.   
  
Wat turns and kisses him, and Geoff stiffens and then relaxes and kisses him back. And then a few people are watching, Kate and Christiana and, somehow Wat feels, da Vinci. He breaks the kiss, and smiles up at Geoff, and Geoff – who still looks rather startled underneath it all – smiles back down at him.   
  
"We can try this," Wat says. "Maybe."  
  
Geoff's breath rushes out through his teeth. "That'd be – fine. Good. Yes. Thank you."  
  
"Stop thanking me," Wat says, and means it, and smacks him in the arm.   
  
"I have to thank someone," Geoff tells him, and smiles, and takes his hands again.  
  
Wat rather thinks that if anyone's to be thanked, it ought to be da Vinci. The man creates miracles, and if anything is a miracle, it's this. It won't work, and it's impossible, and he has no idea what he's doing, but somehow Geoff makes it seem possible, or at least very worth trying.   
  
They stand, Geoff leaning against dusk and Wat leaning against Geoff, and watch the party. But really, at the end of it all, caught between sunrise and sunset, and the sun and the moon, Wat thinks that as far as miracles go, this one might not be to horrible after all.


End file.
